While the tradition of presenting a Thanksgiving turkey to the President has a long history, those birds tended to end up on a holiday table. In 1948, Truman remarked that they would “come in handy” for Christmas dinner. An unofficial pardon has its roots in an act of kindness by John F. Kennedy in 1963. Presented with a plump turkey for Thanksgiving, Kennedy chose to send the bird to a farm rather than the dinner table, saying, "Let’s keep him going." While informal reprieves continued over the years, it wasn’t until 1989 that the act was formalized. President George H. W. Bush issued the first official pardon to a turkey, sparing its life and cementing the ceremony as a lighthearted, yet enduring, feature of the holiday season.

We hope you enjoy and share these photos from the Archive’s holdings of this quirky turkey tradition as you celebrate. Do you know which turkey goes with which President? Click to learn each answer!

Happy Thanksgiving from the National Archives Foundation!